Skip to main content

Day Three Hundred Twenty Three

Today was big. It seems like I've been saying that a lot lately, but once again, it also seems that it's true.

So, what I missed last night was the chance to hear the first run through of the drums and bass that J. put behind the first song we started working on. I caught up with him late this morning, and got to hear it before heading off to work though. It wasn't perfect, but then again, it wasn't supposed to be. He's trying to get close with the drums and bass so that we have a rhythm track to go back and lay new parts over. So what if it wasn't flawless, it was progress. Then we got down to the serious business. Talk of copyright and a brief mention of contracts before I had to dash off to work. All of the business stuff makes sense to get out of the way early, we all want to make sure we protect our interests in this whole thing, just to be on the safe side. Besides, I need to better educate myself about that side of the business anyway. To that end, I looked up the process for copyrighting songs today in a slow moment. Apparently, with so much happening through the internet these days, the process has gotten a lot faster since the last time I pondered looking into it. I found a cool website with a lot of information (musicbizacademy.com), so that should be fun to peruse tomorrow sometime. I also picked up a copy of All You Need To Know About The Music Business, by Donald Passman, and a copy of a book called The Indie Band Survival Guide. That, combined with the other resources I've picked up over the years (mostly stuff on record labels) should give me a good jumping off point for educating myself about the business side of music.

J. said that, aside from copyrighting everything, the next step is probably to find a time for all three of us to "get together" and talk about all of this stuff. He's right. We tried to do it tonight, but B. was unavailable by the time I finally pried myself away from work. So, again tonight it was just J. and I, which means that B. really missed out today, because by the time I got home, J. had gotten through two more songs with drums and bass. I got to hear it all, and then J. and I discussed recording options and programs and interfaces for getting everything to where we need it efficiently.

Apparently, if I get the right kind of audio interface, I can run the mixes from my current recording setup directly into my computer. That would be spectacular, or so I am led to believe.

This whole process is really going to be an education for me. J. has been doing this for years now, and he's gotten all of the training to be good at what he does. I'm hoping that I can learn from him throughout this whole process. I am fully intending to pepper him with questions at every chance I get, although I will admit that sometimes I smile and nod because I don't want to seem unknowing. I really need to stop doing that! The only way to learn is to ask, right?

He also said that, because both B. and I have Magix Music Maker, that he'd find himself a copy of it too, just so that all three of us will be on the same page, program-wise. Some part of me wishes we all had ProTools instead... actually, some part of me wishes we were all doing this in a professional studio instead... which he said could/would/should happen if we get to the end of the process and decide we really want to make something of this, either to sell at gigs or to shop to labels. Can't wait to pass all of this on to B. tomorrow.

And (as before) away we go!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Day Three

Short one today. I've got a bunch of the DVDs that Guitar World has put out. Waded through those to see what I had, worked off of the lead guitar one. Just basic scales , but still a light place to begin. It was nice to just start loosening up my fingers again. Off from work tomorrow, so hopefully I'll get a lot of playing done. Said I'd mention the other project I'm hoping to finish this year. Back when I was living in WI, I started a hard rock band with a friend of mine. She was heavily influenced by Evanescence, and so, with her as vocalist, we started writing songs. We had written and demoed almost a full album's worth of music by the time I moved to IA, and had even purchased a P.A. in preparation for eventual gigs. We never did find a permanent drummer or bassist, so our demos sound very rough (and not nearly loud enough). I'd like to finish those songs, and make an EP of the 4 or 5 strongest, just as a way to put a cap on that project. More tom...

Day Three Hundred Fifty Seven (Year Seven)

Today was okay.  It ended up being quieter than I wanted it to be, but I got in a few things. 1.  I got the music from the car hauled in and sorted out in advance of my road trip to Dubuque for a little longer than a day.  I'm taking the Radiohead reissue with me for that, since I haven't gotten a chance to sit down with it yet. 2.  I'm also taking an empty notebook along with me, in the hopes that I might start to get some lyric ideas down on paper while I'm gone.  I watched some cool videos early this morning about the idea of writing all of the music before writing lyrics, and the way things are going that is looking like what's going on with me. 3.  I wish there had been more playing today, but I'm still feeling good about where things are sitting.  This next week needs to include a lot of writing.

Day Three Hundred Fifty Four

Today was a hodgepodge of musical stuff. Here's a list of the stuff it included... 1) I uncovered two more songs to add to my ongoing list of "supremely catchy pop music." One of the songs is the first song on the latest record by the Smoking Popes, who I saw the other day. It's called "Wish We Were," and it's a glorious pop-punk distillation of unannounced love.  The second song is by a band called the Vaccines. It's called "Norgaard," and it comes off as a mix of 60's California pop, punk energy, and surf rock. 2) Found a poster frame for my Alkaline Trio poster. 3) Heard from B. via text tonight. Apparently she has rediscovered her knack for "creepy, cool lyric writing again." I couldn't be more excited about this. When she hits that kind of stride, B. usually comes up with some pretty great stuff. She tells me she got an entire lyric tonight. Some rough ideas about melody, but nothing concrete yet. As for me,...